


Youth and Innocence

by Rebel_Atar



Series: Spiritassassin Week 2017 [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: First Impressions, Gen, SpiritAssassin Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebel_Atar/pseuds/Rebel_Atar
Summary: Baze Malbus is a child of the temple. He is seven when he first sees another child being brought in.





	Youth and Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I am very late to the Spiritassassin week party but I'm here now and happy to be here. 
> 
> Day 1: First Impressions

Baze was young when the boy had been brought to the temple. Seven, but only just.

 

The boy was tiny. Hunger had carved the flesh from his bones yet his stomach still bulged, swollen with malnutrition. Despite this Baze did not feel pity for the other child. This may have had something to do with the fact that from the moment he had been brought into the temple, screaming and flailing, he’d been a ball of feral rage not dissimilar to a rabid loth-cat.

 

He didn’t understand. The temple was a peaceful place. It was a place for solace, comfort. A place to ease hurt and pain. Why had they brought in a boy that seemed so intent on causing it.

 

He didn’t know that the boy lashed out because he was so full of hurt and pain, because it was all he had known. 

 

It took a few days for him to calm down. A few meals of eating himself sick before he figured out he needed to eat small meals and slowly, despite how much was available, until his body got used to food again. It took time to sink in that the comforts he was being offered might not be immediately snatched away again. 

 

Baze caught him wandering around the temple. Shaking on his too thin legs with one hand pressed against the wall to guide him. It was then Baze noticed his clouded gaze for the first time. 

 

“Who’s there!”

 

The tone was flat, angry but with an edge of fear. Baze felt himself begin to understand. He still did not feel pity. The temple had brought him up better than that.

 

“Baze Malbus.” He said. The other boy furrowed his brow as if trying to slot this new information into the jumbled mess that was how his world now worked. He came up blank.

 

“What do you want?” He said, hesitant.

 

“Nothing.” Baze shrugged.

 

“Nothing?”

 

“There’s nothing for me to do today.” Said Baze, “I’ve done my chores and meditations and the Master’s haven’t decreed anything for the novitiates to work on and the Guardians are all doing things.” He didn’t mention that they were all things he wasn’t allowed to help with. The temple welcomed children into their ranks, especially those with nowhere else to go, that did not mean that they always knew what to do with them. 

 

The boy shuffled his feet, leaning more fully into the wall, unsure what to make of someone that had neither orders or admonishments for him.

 

Baze looked at him. “I can take you ‘round the temple if you like.”

 

The boy blinked his sightless eyes. “What?”

 

“You’re new so you probably don’t know everything that’s here or where it is, right?” Baze spoke slowly. He wasn’t used to speaking so much at once or for so long. 

 

“You...you’d do that for me.”

 

Baze shrugged again. “Nothing else to do.”

 

The boy smiled a little, he looked like he wasn’t used to doing so. “Okay. I think I’d like that.” 

 

Baze walked over and took his hand, tugging the blind boy along after him, careful not to go to fast. “This way.”

 

“Okay. I’m Chirrut by the way. Chirrut Imwe.”

  
That was the first time Chirrut had experienced the near bottomless well of kindness that was Baze Malbus. It would certainly not be the last.


End file.
